The US is set to relax environmental reviews and safety measures for the space industry.

On August 13, the US President released an executive order calling for federal agencies to loosen requirements for commercial launch and re-entry, hoping to empower the American space sector.

The order directs the ‘elimination or expedition’ of the Department of Transportation’s environmental reviews, as well as ‘other obstacles to the granting of’ licenses and permits for space launch and re-entry, and National Environmental Policy Act exclusions for spaceport licenses and permits.

"By slashing red tape tying up spaceport construction, streamlining launch licenses so they can occur at scale, and creating high-level space positions in government, we can unleash the next wave of innovation," declared Transportation Secretary and interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, who also signed the order. "At NASA, this means continuing to work with commercial space companies and improving our spaceports' ability to launch."

A section of the order calls for the re-evaluation, amendment, or rescission of the process of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Part 450 of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations, a protocol designed to reduce the coordination bureaucracy between operators and the regulator, which has been criticized for not going far enough.

SpaceX declared the process frivolous as it introduced delays to its busy schedule of Starship launches, all of which have failed this year, risking significant environmental damage.

After the FAA fined the company for allegedly violating its license, CEO Elon Musk declared he intended to sue the office in September 2024, before he entered the US administration in early 2025, repeatedly stating his intention of weakening American regulatory power.

The order determines that Part 450 regulation should be inapplicable for any launch or re-entry system with a ‘flight termination system or automated flight safety system’, without defining what constitutes such a system, and a ‘hybrid launch or re-entry vehicle that holds a valid FAA airworthiness certificate’.

Speaking to Ars Technica, Jared Margolis, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, called the order reckless and incredibly dangerous.

The Commercial Space Federation, which represents SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other NASA contractors, however, welcomed the intervention.

"The current DOT environmental review process is overly cumbersome and time-consuming and frequently results in duplicative reviews of similar activities which have no identifiable negative impact on the environment," the Commercial Space Federation said in a statement.

The EO also elevates the Office of Space Commerce into the Office of the Secretary, and establishes a position in the Office of the Secretary to advise the Secretary of Transportation to ‘foster innovation and deregulation in the commercial space transportation industry.’